Notice Me - Choi Beomgyu

Nine

Wake up, lesson, eat, schedule, eat, practice, sleep, repeat.

That was how Beomgyu's day looked like. Now that comeback season was approaching, he had become a lot more occupied with different group schedules that he had to postpone his lessons with Jian. Of course, he did not have the right to complain anything at all because he already was not the most overworked member — Yeonjun had his individual MC work at Inkigayo, and while Yeonjun was at work, at least he had time to rest before group choreography rehearsals, though sometimes he attended extra vocal lessons arranged by the company.

Besides the comeback, the American tour also worried him. Sure, the company was kind enough to assign them native speakers as their English teachers, and he was grateful for that. Nevertheless, he knew he was falling behind. Yeonjun, Huening and Taehyun were already partially fluent prior to debut, but Soobin was starting to catch up day by day. With Soobin's progress, Beomgyu was starting to get anxious. He could speak in basic English with the correct tense, but Soobin's improvement in pronunciation earned praises from their teacher.

He could not let himself fall behind when even Soobin had paid such a tremendous effort to study English and even Japanese while he was slacking about and complaining about his workload. They were a group of five, after all. All members needed to work hard and improve together for MOAs. No, he corrected himself, they must work hard and improve together as a group for MOAs, so that they could have a successful tour.

Getting off his bed, he checked the time — seven in the morning, an hour before he was supposed to wake up. And the first thing he decided to do was send an email to Jian, asking her if she was available next Sunday while Yeonjun was at Inkigayo, for he was free and had no extra vocal lessons.

To : li_zhi.an@outlook.com
From : daegu.gyu01@gmail.com
Subject : Lesson

Hello.

Sorry for disturbing you so early in the morning. I would to ask if you are not occupied this Sunday, because I would like to have an extra English lesson.

Thank you.

Choi Beomgyu du-rim

To his surprise, Jian replied a few minutes later.

~~~

Hello Beomgyu-ssi.

Yes, I am. See you on Sunday where we had our last lesson.

Lee Jian du-rim

~~~

Thank you so much and see you on Sunday!

Choi Beomgyu du-rim

PS : what food do you like?

~~~

I like a lot of food, though if I can only pick one Korean food it would be ramyeon. I'm addicted to them nowadays. My roomate Eunjeong-unnie makes the best ramyeon, even surpassing my Korean mother!

~~~

Beomgyu took a mental note of that, making sure to treat her HYBE cafeteria's signature ramyeon for lunch.

Ahh I see! Mines honey rice cake and stir-fried beef tripe from Daegu!! You should definitely try them one day!

~~~

I haven't been to Daegu in a long time, but if I visit there someday, I'll definitely check them out!

Beomgyu tried to conceal the small smile playing on his lips before replying: 'As you should! ' The two continued texting for about an hour before Beomgyu was called for group practice. The young man was beyond intrigued by the new worker at HYBE. Her personality being easygoing was an understatement -- it was everything Beomgyu wanted from a friend. He found it comfortable chatting with her online, but for some reason, he was getting more and more nervous when seeing her in person at HYBE's headquarters.

Practice lasted for about four hours before dinner arrived. Each member was awarded two huge slices of pizza and a bottle of juice, which their manager had ordered from a local restaurant. While Huening Kai video-called his younger sister, Bahiyyih from Kep1er, Yeonjun, Soobin and Taehyun watched the day's music show broadcast. However, Beomgyu made use of the time to reply to Jian's emails. There weren't much, but he started to notice Taehyun's suspicious gaze as he tried not to stare nervously at his phone, waiting for Jian's answer.

He used some time to figure out the reason behind Taehyun's intuition, though he soon remembered : he rarely communicated through email before meeting Jian. In fact, he only used his email for verifying his identity in sites such as Instagram when he forgot his passwords, something Soobin found hilarious. No wonder Taehyun grew wary of his new behaviour.

The only thing he could do was to ask Jian for her social media account. He was not ready to add her phone number, and since most young adults were active on at least one social media platform, he found it natural if he wanted to add his new friend.

~~~

Jian couldn't believe her eyes when she checked her email first thing after work was over. In particular, one sentence stood out. 'Is it okay if follow your Instagram account presuming that you have one? '

It was the dream of every fan to have their social media account followed by the idol they looked up to. A normal person would immediately send theirs without hesitation, however, she had to admit she was a little reluctant when it came to hers, the reason being she had fan-girled daily about TOMORROW X TOGETHER on her account. There was no way she would let him see her gibberish after seeing their comeback teasers and concept photos.

The editorial team, knowing she was a MOA, refused to let her have a sneak peak, but constantly teased her about them. They claimed the members were wearing a sleeveless shirt in some of the photos, and if they were speaking the truth, she would be simping so much that if Beomgyu followed her account, he would suppose she was a creep.

Luckily, no matter if she was using Gmail our Outlook, there was no indication whether she would have read his email on the app or website he was using, unlike social media. Sure, she agreed with him that 'email was too formal to use between friends', but she was grateful for once she had enough time to ask Eunjeong and Nari for advice before accepting or declining the offer.

"Choi freaking Beomgyu wants to follow me on Instagram!" She screamed at the top of her lungs as soon as she arrived. She did not care whether Eunjeong or Nari were actually in the apartment, and only wanted to express how successful a MOA she was.

"Congrats." Nari sighed. "I've been wanting to go to an ENHYPEN fan-sign for ages and get their autographs, but it seems like I'm one unlucky ENGENE. At this rate, I bet you could get their autograph much quicker than poor ol' me despite not being an ENGENE. HYBE workers and their privileges..."

"Should I let him follow me though? I fan-girl about TOMORROW BY TOGETHER in almost every single post and story, and what if he sees them? I don't want Beomgyu to think I'm a creep or a sasaeng! He and the TOMORROW BY TOGETHER members will never look at me the same way after this! I may even lose my job if my department head knows about this!"

"Why not?" Eunjeong piped up. "Give Choi Beomgyu a chance! I'd exchange even my soul to exchange Instagram accounts with my favourite idol group! You can let him follow your public account, though you're barely active there."

Jian only blinked before laughing. "Why are you more eager to accept his follow request when I'm the one who was requested?"

***

A longer chapter to make up for the last one (it was too short omfg)! Next chapter, Beomgyu and Jian's instagram outlooks will be revealed for the first time and I have quite a lot prepared, so please stay tuned!!